Crypto · Ethereum Memecoin · SHIB
Shiba Inu.
Half The Supply Went To A Stranger.
One quadrillion tokens, half of them sent unasked to Ethereum’s founder, and what he did with them is the whole story.
SHIB is an Ethereum ERC-20 memecoin launched in August 2020 by a pseudonymous creator known as Ryoshi, with a supply limit of one quadrillion tokens. Half the supply was sent unsolicited to Vitalik Buterin, who burned most of it and donated the rest, including more than $1 billion to an India COVID relief fund.
What SHIB Is
The token itself, and where it came from.
What It Is
SHIB is an Ethereum ERC-20 memecoin launched in August 2020 by a pseudonymous creator using the name Ryoshi. Half of the one quadrillion supply was sent to Vitalik Buterin without asking him, as a way of locking it away.
Origin
Launched in August 2020 by a pseudonymous creator known as Ryoshi, with half the supply sent unsolicited to Vitalik Buterin. Source: Wikipedia.
Supply
A supply limit of 1,000,000,000,000,000 tokens, one quadrillion. CoinGecko records total supply at about 589.5 trillion after burns, with essentially all of it circulating. Ethereum contract .
Chain
Ethereum ERC-20
Two prices, both from CoinGecko. The dashed line is a straight join between them, not the path the price took.
The Record
Documented highs, lows and events. Not a forecast.
All Time High
$0.00008616, 27 October 2021. Source: CoinGecko.
All Time Low
$0.000000000056366, 28 November 2020. Source: CoinGecko.
Event 1
13 May 2021, Vitalik Buterin donated over 50 trillion SHIB, worth more than $1 billion at the time, to the India COVID-Crypto Relief Fund. In the same month he donated SHIB worth $665 million to the Future of Life Institute. Source: Wikipedia.
Event 2
October 2021, the price rose about 240 percent inside a week, and by late November it was down roughly 55 percent from that peak. Source: Wikipedia.
The Lore, After The Founder Left
Four dated events. The pseudonymous creator erased himself, and the ecosystem he left behind built its own chain, broke it on launch day, and lost $2.4 million from its bridge two years later.
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May 2022
Ryoshi Deletes Everything
The pseudonymous founder deleted his tweets and blog posts and stepped away from the community, describing himself in a farewell as “just some guy of no consequence tapping at a keyboard”. Shytoshi Kusama, a lead developer, took over. Source: Cointelegraph, 31 May 2022.
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August 16, 2023
Shibarium Launches, And Stalls
The Shiba Inu layer 2 went live and froze almost immediately. About 954 ETH, roughly $1.7 million, sat locked in the bridge contract, no transactions confirmed for more than three hours, and SHIB fell 8 per cent on the day while BONE and LEASH fell 20 and 22 per cent. The team said all funds were safe. Source: Decrypt, 17 August 2023.
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September 13, 2025
The Bridge Is Drained
An attacker flash loaned 4.6 million BONE to gain majority validator power and, using compromised validator signing keys, moved $2.4 million out of the Shibarium bridge. K9 Finance offered a 5 ETH bounty and staking functions were paused. Source: Cointelegraph, 15 September 2025.
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September 21, 2026
93.2 Per Cent Below The High
SHIB traded at $0.00000587, about 93.2 per cent below the $0.00008616 record of 27 October 2021, with a market capitalisation near $3.46 billion. Source: CoinGecko.
The Live Chart, And The Contract
Daily candles for the pool this token actually trades in, re-read every minute and drawn on this page rather than embedded from somebody else’s. The contract is underneath so you can check the chart is the token this page is about.
Loading the daily candles.
Daily candles from GeckoTerminal, re-read every minute while this section is on screen and drawn on this page. Not a recommendation.
Check the contract against the chart before you trust either. On both chains there is always a different token using the same name.
The Risks
Structural, and specific to this token.
Risk 1
A pseudonymous creator who has since walked away leaves no accountable entity behind the token.
Risk 2
A quadrillion unit supply means the price is quoted in ten thousandths of a cent and percentage moves come from almost nothing in absolute terms.
Risk 3
The single largest event in its history was a stranger deciding what to do with half the supply. Nothing structurally prevents a repeat with a different holder.
Risk 4
No revenue, no cash flows and no claim on anything back the token.
Launch details and events sourced from Wikipedia, Fortune via Yahoo Finance, Gate Learn and MEXC Crypto Pulse, with each figure carrying its publication in the row it appears in. Supply, contracts, all time highs and all time lows are from CoinGecko, and every contract was then resolved through DexScreener and checked against the symbol and name of the page it sits on. Prices are dated snapshots, not live figures. Nothing on this page is a price forecast. Every row in the timeline carries its own date and its own publication, and those are the sources. Supply, contracts, all time highs and all time lows come from CoinGecko, cross checked against CoinMarketCap and Coinpaprika. Where the aggregators disagree, both figures are printed and each is named in the row. Where a date is reported only as a month or a range it is written that way rather than narrowed. Direct quotations are reproduced from the reporting and attributed to the person who said them. Any price or market capitalisation in a row is a dated snapshot, not a live figure. Nothing on this page is a price forecast.
The Other Breakdowns
Same shape every time.
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TURBO
A Language Model Designed It For $69.
MOG
420.69 Trillion, Fairly Launched.
SPX
A Joke About The S&P That Went Up Seventeen Hundred Times.
FLOKI
Named After A Dog That Was Named On Twitter.
The Solana Memecoins
Twenty breakdowns and the ten largest, refreshed hourly.
Common Questions
An Ethereum ERC-20 memecoin launched in August 2020 by a pseudonymous creator called Ryoshi, with a one quadrillion supply limit. Source: Wikipedia.
It was sent to him without asking, which is a common way of putting supply somewhere it cannot be sold. He did not agree to hold it and did not keep it. Source: Wikipedia.
On 13 May 2021 he donated over 50 trillion SHIB, worth more than $1 billion at the time, to the India COVID-Crypto Relief Fund, and in the same month donated SHIB worth $665 million to the Future of Life Institute. Source: Wikipedia.
$0.00008616 on 27 October 2021, per CoinGecko.
No. Memecoins have no cash flows and most go to zero. Cody Wise is not a licensed advisor.
A Memecoin Is Not
A Position.
The sleeve is sized so a total loss changes nothing about the plan. That is the only condition under which it belongs at all.
Not financial advice.